Saturday, 3 December 2016

Bookmark Five

Hello.
It's been a while since we last spoke. Anything of note happen in the interim
that we should be discussing? Geopolitically, like?

No?
well in that case we can get on with the annual reading round up. Which might
be quite short, as this was a pretty slow year. What with the general state of
the world, the type of challenging books I (like to think I) like to read just
seemed too much, and fleeing to escapism feels like an abdication of
responsibility, somehow. Plus I got a new PC over the summer which is actually
capable of running Civilization at full spec, so I can't honestly claim my lack
of reading time is purely down to existential angst.

So,
excluding comics and academic texts (which also substantially cut into my
available reading time), the total is 38 books read this year. Which is quite
shocking, when I think about it; at this rate it'd take a decade to clear my
TBR pile. Not the worst problem to have, of course. Eighteen by women, seventeen
by men and three multi-author collections. Seven non-fiction books and five
works in translation. You know the drill.

The
reading related highlight was meeting an internet pal in real life for the
first time ever. @twodudessf was as excellent company as you'd expect, and the
whole experience was far less terrifying than it might otherwise have been. In
terms of actual books, the best book I read was probably Indra Das's The Devourers.

Honourable
mentions to The Paper Menagerie, City of Stairs, and Imaginary Cities, and also Nishi Shawl's Everfair and N.K. Jemisin's The Obelisk Gate, both of which which I
promise I'll write something about as and when I can pluck up the time and
motivation. But if you'll excuse me, Isabella won't build this Great Wall by
herself…